Customer Service Feedback

(long post, just getting it all off my chest)

I have been a loyal customer of GGG and PoE for around 13 years. I have willingly, and all on my own, spent a lot on many packs and microtransactions. I did all this because I wanted to support the games and the great team. I know that nobody ever forced me to spend one cent. This is a free-to-play game, I understand this. I love to support things that give me enjoyment.

PoE2 early access and supporter packs come out. I again, get the bug to want to support. Again, I know this is all my choice. I put in for the Liberator of Wraeclast Supporter pack. I have done top packs before. I did have the money, but since they have PayPal as an option, I wanted to see if there is an option to split the cost up once I get to the PayPal screen.

I clicked through to the PayPal button on the PoE page, the PP popup came up and... the purchase just goes straight through. Completed. This should go to a separate PP window to choose payment methods within PayPal. Not a huge deal. I decided to contact customer service to see if we can just refund this and I make another decision.

Xsolla purchase confirmation came through on Nov. 29th at 9:01 pm CDT. GGG received my refund inquiry on Nov. 29 at 9:07 pm CDT, shortly after the purchase went through. This is noted in their response on Nov. 30 at 2:02 pm CDT. The rep thanked me for the contact and asked for more details about my account so they could look into it. I responded with all the required info, 2 hrs and 27 min later at 3:29 pm that day.

So far, we are about 19.5 hours in since purchase, request, acknowledgment, and response. So I wait to hear back. Almost 3 hours later the same day, Nov. 30th, I ping support again with the info just to make sure they got it. Right near 24 hours since the purchase.

No response. December 3rd, I ping support again, replying to their last email, asking about progress. No response. Dec. 6th, pinged again. Nothing until December 10th, when a different support agent emails me and asks for my account details like the previous agent. I give the info. Dec. 12th, I ask about progress again.

Five days later, on Dec. 17th, right after the physical goods were delivered, a third support agent emailed me to say:

"I am really sorry, but I am afraid we're not able to grant your request in this case, as we're only able to consider a refund or swap when requested within 48 hours of the purchase being made, and the contents of the pack remain completely untouched (microtransactions and points). In this case since the physical items have been delivered, we are unable to offer a refund here."

--This part right here: "we're only able to consider a refund or swap when requested within 48 hours of the purchase being made"
My request, and their initial response, and my giving account info, all happened within 24 hours of purchase.
--Then, this part: "In this case since the physical items have been delivered, we are unable to offer a refund here."
Support literally waited until after they got delivery confirmation that the physical goods were delivered to me before responding.

If support had just told me something like "Hey, we're sorry, but it's just too tough to make a refund in cases like this" or something like that way sooner, I would have begrudgingly accepted that and moved on. But this ish about 48 hours? I did that. Waiting more than 2 weeks later waiting until stuff gets delivered? That is not cool, man.

I know nobody will read this far, I don't blame you. The post might even get deleted. I just can't support a company that handles things like this.

I read it all, Non refundable because of spent points makes sense, You could try asking them if you buy the spent points if the rest can be refunded.

If you sent an email on the refund request it should be valid i'd think though pending the replacing the spent points being an option.

more emails is presumed to reset your place in queue.

"

SilentSymphony#3358 wrote:

I read it all, Non refundable because of spent points makes sense, You could try asking them if you buy the spent points if the rest can be refunded.

If you sent an email on the refund request it should be valid i'd think though pending the replacing the spent points being an option.

more emails is presumed to reset your place in queue.

I appreciate the reply. The reason they denied the request was because the physical items from the pack had arrived, 2 weeks after my inquiry. I had not touched any of the points or keys.

"In this case since the physical items have been delivered, we are unable to offer a refund here."

I had the request in and they responded within a few hours. They give you 48 hours, per the support rep. They just kept me un-replied until after the physical goods arrived to me. Then, Oops sorry, you got your loot! Case closed!

It's over and done. I paid it, they got their money. I'm just not going to support again. And I'm definitely not trying to make a threat, I'm nothing in the huge sea of players. Just needed to get this off my chest.

Look, I'm going to be honest. I don't see things the way you do - and I'd be surprised if most did.

Here's a summary of the situation as I see it;

• You start off by making a purchase you don't want to make.
• You state that the website "should" have asked how you want to pay through PayPal, but... websites regularly don't work that way? If you wanted to split the purchase up across multiple smaller payments, you could have either agreed a payment plan with their support team, or else initially bought a smaller supporter pack and gradually upgraded your purchase.
• Having already been the author of your own misfortune, you then repeatedly send superfluous messages to their support team. You use the word "ping"; the word that comes to my mind is "spam". This keeps resetting your position in the queue - and likely confused the employee who responded to you on the 10th. I could understand maybe doing it once, but not three times...
• Finally, you accuse them of deliberately waiting to respond until after the physical item has been delivered. But they're a formerly-indie team that never really scaled up in size properly (totally their fault - don't get me wrong), and Path of Exile 2 is already the 15th most played game of all time on Steam. That's in addition to everyone playing it using the standalone game client, the Epic Games Store client, on Xbox, and on PlayStation. Their support team isn't sitting around looking for excuses not to respond to you quickly. They are drowning in tickets.

If you hadn't made a purchase, the situation would never have arisen.

Otherwise, if you had just been patient and waited for them to get back to you, they'd almost certainly have caught your t-shirt before it was shipped and granted your request. I'll be blunt and say that annoying their staff with a bunch of "hi any updates?" likely didn't help - and probably contributed to them not reading previous messages from you as closely as they otherwise would have.

You could try sending another email clarifying the time & date of your purchase, the time & date of you initially asking for the purchase to be refunded, and offer to return the t-shirt (at your own expense) and see if they're interested in making an exception. But if I was in your shoes, I would write that email with a very different tone than you've used in this thread.

They could've done better here, but it's frankly impressive just how thoroughly you managed to make a mess of the situation, and you don't seem interested in accepting any responsibility whatsoever.

"

Sarno#0493 wrote:

They could've done better here, but it's frankly impressive just how thoroughly you managed to make a mess of the situation, and you don't seem interested in accepting any responsibility whatsoever.

Kinda sums up a lot of what is going on in the forums atm tbh what with the "hacks" and people loosing access to EA because they bought keys from a dodgy re seller.

"

Sarno#0493 wrote:

post here

--First, I prefaced my entire post by stating that I fully accept what happened and that all choices made were mine. I was prepared to pay the full amount, I was just hoping I would have a choice.

--Second, I have been using PayPal for nearly 20 years. I don't recall a purchase that didn't go to a separate window for PayPal to choose whether the payment comes directly from the bank, the bank card, etc. Then, you confirm there and complete the purchase. Steam is one example of this. I don't recall it ever just going through on the first click.

--Third, you can define "ping" as "spam" all you want. That doesn't make it true. I sent one email, days later, asking if there was an update. Days later, I got a response. Days later again, I sent one email asking if there were any updates. By now, we are WELL past the 48-hour time limit I had no idea about until the final email, over 2 weeks after my initial inquiry. Two emails hardly qualify as spam.

Finally, you call them a "formerly indie team that never really scaled up in size properly" As you say, that is their fault. They've had at least 15 years to figure out how to quickly answer emails and keep the customer informed. I've gotten faster responses from a guy selling goods from his garage.

"You could try sending another email clarifying the time & date of your purchase, the time & date of you initially asking for the purchase to be refunded" --I did precisely this, with screenshots and date/time stamps, and every piece of info they asked for. My emails are always cordial.

The point of it all is this. Their refund policy is, apparently, 48 hours. It may be in print somewhere, I just never found it. This is what they told me long after that time had passed. I had the inquiry and all the info to them within 24 hours. I waited several days before my first "spam" as you say, email asking about progress. There is no reason they couldn't have gotten back to me with a "yes or no" within 24 hours of my initial inquiry and compliance.

To the guy who said that the OP dug his own hole....really?

If I just, pretty much accidentally, made a multi-hundred dollar purchase: followed all the requisite steps AND received immediate contact. But then was ghosted past the refund time...the "oh shit" alarm bells would be going off like crazy!

"Try to see it from their side" is irrelevant: there is a monetary transaction involved. And like he said, they had ALREADY looked into his case and then just....stopped. That is THEIR fault, not his for following up on his lost money. At this point in the process, he is out hundreds of dollars with nothing to show for it and support has not responded in THEIR OWN stated timeframe.


However, the OP also says he has bought the big packs before. Has he never done that via paypal, and this was just a one-off experiment of sorts? Was there really NO confirmation button for the purchase? That is the part of this whole scenario that I doubt.



But regardless of whether I doubt the intricacies of the scenario, what the OP DID was all appropriate and correct: what GGG support did was not.

OP, out of sheer principle, I would continue battling them. Especially if you have all the records of your contact. Their inability to act in a timely manner on your appropriately timed request is NOT your problem or fault. Not only that...you have a HISTORY of purchasing items from them! That alone lends credit to this one particular error being an...error.


Say what you will about "being polite" and whatnot: when money is on the table, and a large amount of money at that, you can bet your ass I will raise hell if I am not being told whats going on! Being polite and "nice" all the time gets you nowhere.

"

AgentSmith5150#4513 wrote:

--Second, I have been using PayPal for nearly 20 years. I don't recall a purchase that didn't go to a separate window for PayPal to choose whether the payment comes directly from the bank, the bank card, etc. Then, you confirm there and complete the purchase. Steam is one example of this. I don't recall it ever just going through on the first click.

kind of a side note, but PP changed drastically in last year. i would advise looking for an alt sooner than later

"

cowmoo275#3095 wrote:

-post-

I have no plans to press the issue further. I made the purchase and everything is fine. I own up to it, as I stated in my first post. I was really just dismayed about the correspondence, but it is what it is. I think in my old age it was just something I needed to get off my chest. It's over and done.

I looked into older purchases and I did screw up before with PayPal, almost 5 years ago. That time, The payment came out of the wrong bank account tied to my PayPal, it needed to come out of a different one. GGG helped me in that case and refunded the purchase and I made the purchase with the correct account. Again, my mistake and they didn't have to help me, but they did.

So I think PayPal has changed since then. Oh well. I appreciate all the responses. I wasn't expecting much, like I said, just an old man venting.

Bro i have 200 points just sitting in the ether that I've emailed 3 times about.

My brother has been playing 5 days and emailed support still hasn't gotten his 1000 points and no response

I am on my 8th day without a response from customer support and my account also has a Linking bug where it says on the path site here that I don't even own poe 2 early access..

I am getting ready to call my bank and cancel payment on the 200 points, this is messed up what's happening.